Talbot Mundy

“ There, by a big tree out of sight of the gate, they all got down except Zelmira, taking out all the luggage except Strange’s bag.
“Take it to him, as if it were the most natural thing in the world,” said Ommony; and Zelmira laughed down from the howdah.
“If he doesn’t ask where you’re staying, volunteer the information.”
The elephant moved on, seeming to swim in golden dust against the sunset glow, with walls of opal for a background. Men built a gorgeous cage for their beloved in the days when that Panch Mahal first rose among primeval trees. ”

“ There is nothing about a ride on the back of an old cow-elephant to bring good-humor and amusement to the surface, nor yet to drown them under gloom. Ommony’s high spirits shone forth and aroused Jeff to a similar frame of mind. ”

“ And a pair of junglis, flitting in and out among the shadows, peering this and that way on the qui vive for marauding animals, believed that Ommony was some old god incarnated—his song the echo of the splendor of another world. ”

“ Moonlight in the clearings, gleaming on bridle, his gray shirt, and the bare skin where the shirt lay open at the neck, touched him with romance and annoyed the raja beyond reasonableness.
“You’ll attract wild beasts,” he objected.
“Yes, I seem to do that naturally. You and Strange, for instance! Problem is to tame you. Can’t be done by cruelty. World’s already full of brute force. Marry Mars to Venus, and produce what? Trees!”
“I often think you’re crazy,” said the raja.
“And you’re right. We all are. The least crazy of us are the keepers of the rest. ”

“ He drew abreast, and the shadows of the men beneath the tree so startled him that he nearly fell from the ox-cart.
“And she said, at the Panch Mahal, yet here they wait. Inaccuracy, O thy name is woman! Orders from a woman are a belly-ache—incomprehensible wind and weariness!”
“Have you brought what she told you to?” Ommony demanded.
“Everythingplus! Whatever Charley sahib placed in boxes in hut is now here, plus.” ”

“ Job not worth it, either. No emolument!”
Ommony and Charley checked over what was in the cart, and Ommony leaving the servants behind showed the way to what had once been elephant stalls at the rear of the Panch Mahal. Five brick arches stood in a row intact, and one of them had been boarded up before and behind to make a barn of sorts. There Jeff unloaded cases of paraphernalia, setting them down very carefully under Charley’s supervision. There in the bat-flitting gloom they left Charley alone. ”